


Sand and Water

by daisybrien



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Beach House, Blended family, Day At The Beach, Family, Family Fluff, Father Figures, Fatherhood, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 09:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11825409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: Davenport settles into family life.





	Sand and Water

There’s an uneasy lull that settles over them in the months that follow the apocalypse, days spent with their careful, tiptoeing feet dancing around each other as they play music with the creaking wood floorboards. It is almost too peaceful for the two of them, too easy for them to sit back and rest their weary bones after a century’s epiphany of strife had made itself their reality again. It’s a struggle for him to find a rhythm that makes relaxation time his majority, too used to the busywork and stress of missions and milestones. Yet Merle is worse at their newfound domesticity, stuttering through his way around household chores and a marriage he only just remembered; he constantly asks for Davenport’s assurance, at night when they’re both half asleep, whispered over the worn cotton of Merle’s fraying pillow cover. 

Davenport finds himself on the beach more often, despite constantly grumbling of itching sunburns and sand in places it really shouldn’t be, as the days go by. He can see why Merle would want to move here, to just sit by the shore and do nothing but watch the waves roll in and the crabs skitter lazily along the waterline. Nature has her own quiet melody here, kept to the beat of seagull cries. When Davenport curls his toes into the earth beneath him, it gives way without resistance, an easy cathartic release to the stress that builds in his body, always building, only to ebb when he’s on the beach, when he’s with Merle. 

He learns to love it, just because Merle does. 

He watches from down the beach, Merle small in the distance as frothy waves crash over his shoulder. He hears giddy, excited laughter alongside Merle’s own hearty chuckle float in with the driftwood, sees seawater arc as Mookie breaks through its surface again. His thick, short arms wave at him eagerly, hair messy and tangled as it plasters over his forehead. 

“Dav!” He hears his name shouted at him, repeating like a broken record. “Dav! Davenport, come on!” it continues, Mookie’s voice growing louder and more frantic the longer he stays in his spot. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the brim of a sunhat tilting up; he grins at the young dwarf by his side, hears her snort before watching her bury her nose in her book again. 

Merle’s voice joins into the chorus soon, and Davenport sighs. With aching knees reminding him just how old he’s getting, he lifts himself up off his towel, shading his eyes to watch the two of them beckon him into the water.

“Come on Davvy!” Merle calls out. His hair hangs limp and full over his shoulders, half of it covering his face in wet curtains. “Come play with your son!”

Davenport laughs, Mavis echoing him sentimentally as his heart swells and his cheeks ache with the smile that blooms across his face. Finally he relents, cheers of joy and triumph heralding his arrival as he submerges his toes, then his ankles, reaching out to take Merle’s hand before Mookie all but bodyslams him back into the waves.

He readies himself for the impact, for childish laughter and the frigid water to engulf him, and by the time he is knee-deep he realizes with a soft warmth just how much he can love for Merle, and for himself.


End file.
